If I Only Knew Then...

by Charles Grodin

  We put together the perfect list, mostly famous friends of Lorne’s and their kids. The Lohan family was given approximately twenty-five seats. As the RSVPs started coming in, I noticed that the Lohan family, specifically Lindsay’s father, had invited half of Long Island. He eventually went to jail, but not for sabotaging his own daughter’s event . . . which in my book of justice remains his biggest crime today. Allison Jackson was powerless to control Lindsay’s dad. I begged for another screening room, which the studio would not provide.

  The night of the “special screening” arrived, and an executive from Paramount, who had just gotten his prestigious job a week before, flew in with a companion and another couple. We were severely overbooked and I saw the writing on the wall. The entire theater was packed and every seat was filled with celebrities like Jimmy Buffett, Caroline Kennedy, James Gandolfini, and NBC family members Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Brian Williams, and Dick Ebersol. In a moment of profound confusion, and in hindsight, the dumbest decision I ever made, I asked the newly appointed Paramount executive to get up and give his four seats to latecomer Dan Aykroyd and his family. Why would I humiliate the very people who pay my bills? Because it was Lorne’s screening for his friends and Dan Aykroyd was an original cast member of SNL. This snap decision haunts me to this day. The executive, who is one of the nicest guys I know from Miramax, took his friends out to dinner. Little did I know the extent of his hurt feelings and the revenge of his PR staff.

  The film and party were both smashes. Lorne got calls the next day from all the greats and near-greats.

  The Paramount PR people began to plot my assassination. I got wind of the first blow from Richard Johnson, editor of the New York Post’s lethal “Page Six.” I tried to defend myself in print, which was a joke. I called every member of Paramount’s PR staff to personally apologize. I sent flowers everywhere. I sent champagne to the executive. I whined and cried all over town. I phoned other studio heads to see if I had made the wrong call; they laughed at me and said I had done the right thing. Apparently not, however, by Paramount’s standards. More nasty column items continued to run. I flew to Los Angeles to personally apologize and people refused to see me.

  Two years later an editor at “Page Six” wrote a book reprinting the whole mess and editorializing that although I worked very hard and did a great job, my people skills, or lack thereof, left me washed- up and dead. It was a nightmare that wouldn’t go away. Every studio in Hollywood knew Paramount would never work with me again.

  Years later, my producer friend of twenty-five years, Paramount’s Michael Shamberg, whom I’d met on the set of The Big Chill, tried to hire me on World Trade Center. The doors at Paramount were still locked. It was just amazing how Mean Girls continued to haunt me.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  Do I now know who I work for? Have I become a little more empathetic to people’s feelings in an overbooked theater? You bet. Do I continue to have seating crises? You bet. But now I keep everyone very calm. By the end of 2006, the woman who caused me so much grief was gone. Finally I was hired to do special screenings on World Trade Center and Babel, and I’d learned to always have an extra chair.

  ART GARFUNKEL

  Singer-Songwriter

  Now that I look back on it, my mistake seems like an alpine peak of folly—the Matterhorn of madness. Maybe we find our ways to these heights of spectacular stupidity by patient increments, ever loyal to the climb.

  It was sometime in 1968. We were mixing “Mrs. Robinson,” Paul and Roy Halee and I. This means we were in a control room of a recording studio, Columbia’s, at the soundboard, locking in the relationships of thirty-two channels of music, with our six hands. We worked through the night against a morning deadline—a sold-out tour awaited. The first show was the very next night—big show, the Jungfrau!

  I guess I first started playing on elevated ground in the recording studio in my high school years. In my college years when Simon and Garfunkel hit, I was propelled into American business, having serious fun making records, trying to keep a perspective. So a show gets booked on Yom Kippur night near home, and you honor the gig—this is not carried away by fame.

  Through the late 1960s—through albums, concerts, and The Graduate, I stayed focused on the fun at hand, and pretty unfocused on many other things. Now we were coming to the end of recording the Bookends album. The artwork was done, credits and packaging complete, ready to ship, waiting only for Paul and Artie to finish the last drop, “Mrs. Robinson.” The studio phone rings at midnight: “They’re sending over a union rep to bust you guys for manually sharing in your recording engineer’s work.” We put our spy at the elevator while we nervously mixed against the clock.

  Maybe it was six-thirty a.m. when we finished “Mrs. R.” Bookends was now done. I went home to my New York apartment for a little bit of sleep before the last flight to our first sold-out appearance for the album tour. My deep satisfaction led to a deep sleep. I slept through the alarm and the flight! There was no show! Thousands of people were sent home disappointed.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  Don’t let deep satisfaction infringe on deep responsibilities.

  ARLENE ALDA

  Children’s Book Author,

  Photographer

  Life magazine—the magazine for good photography—had given me an important assignment, and it meant a lot to me. I got to the New York offices first thing in the morning after having flown all night from Los Angeles on the red-eye. I was going to meet my deadline just in time. The year was 1983.

  I had spent an exhilarating week of practically nonstop photography of the last days of the TV show M*A*S*H. The results of the shoot would appear in the magazine—in color—with my byline. What a coup. I had no illusions about why they had chosen me, even though I was a published photographer. One of the editors had seen a book that I had photographed and written, and he saw that I was okay. I could do a good job. But it didn’t hurt, either, that I was the wife of the lead actor in the show, Alan Alda, and I had that magic ticket called “access.” It didn’t bother me that I had been picked because of that. I knew that I could deliver, given the chance. I worked harder than ever to cover everything that I felt would give the viewer a good idea of what it was like that last week, behind the scenes, on that fabled set. What I didn’t realize was that I would be exhausted from the overnight flight and that without sleep I couldn’t even think straight.

  I handed over about two hundred slides that I had culled during the week, from about a thousand or more. The editor in chief immediately went over to a light box and began reviewing the slides. He got them down to enough for what he said would be a six-page spread. My heart was beating fast from excitement, even through that haze of sleepiness and jet lag.

  When I asked to see what he selected, my bubble burst. I stared at the pictures in silence. One of the shots, which he wanted as a double-page spread, was out of focus. “Please don’t use that shot,” I pleaded. “I have another of the same scene, shot a fraction of a second later, that is in focus. That’s the one I meant to give you.”

  I counted two mistakes at the same time: (1) I gave him the wrong picture, and (2) I was begging.

  The editor in chief seemed unmoved, especially by my begging. He was in a hurry. I was almost in tears. Why would he use a slightly out-of-focus shot when I had one that was in focus? I guess his ego wasn’t at stake the way mine seemed to be and he wasn’t bothered by the photo the way I was.

  Another editor took me aside and said in a kind manner, “Show him your other slide. Don’t just ask. He has no time to look for it. You look for it.” I awakened from my self-pity and went over to a light box. I went through boxes of slides. I knew that I had the photo . . . but where? After what seemed like forever, I finally found it. I presented it to the editor in chief. “This is the shot that I meant to give you, instead of the out-of-focus one,” I said. He took it, looked at it, and said “Okay.” As simple as that. Why had I assumed that I had no power when I really
had a solution? Was it sheer exhaustion? Politeness? I had felt helpless. What an awful feeling, and I didn’t need to feel that way.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  It’s taken me much of my adult life to realize that respect for others doesn’t mean that I have to put my own good sense aside. Most of us have more options than we think we have. That session at Life magazine made a powerful impression on me. Don’t complain. Do something about it. Be proactive . . . Yes! Of course, taking the right actions is one of life’s ongoing challenges. It feels so much better to find solutions than to slip into helpless/complaining mode.

  JAMES M. NEDERLANDER

  Theater Owner

  Many years ago the Uris Building, which was a large office building in New York that was also the home of the Uris Theatre, was for sale. The people who owned it had declared bankruptcy, and I could have bought it by simply taking over the mortgage payments, but I was a theater owner and I didn’t want to be in the business of renting office space, so I declined. Today that building, which is also the home of the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway, is worth an incredible fortune.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  I was crazy. Sometimes when an opportunity presents itself, you should just take that unexpected turn in the road.

  MORT ZUCKERMAN

  Owner, U.S. News and World

  Report and the New York Daily

  News

  As I look back on my life and think about what my biggest mistake was, there is a long list from which I could make a selection. One that I chose is my failure to take music lessons. I would love to be able to play the piano or cello or anything that would enable me to lose myself to music. I started to take piano lessons in Boston before I moved to New York, and once I moved here I lost the teacher and the impetus.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  Thus, I remain shy of any musical abilities and greatly regret it.

  HOWARD J. RUBENSTEIN

  President, Rubenstein

  Associates, Inc.

  After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Phi Beta Kappa and third in my class, I entered Harvard Law School. I went there at the insistence of my mother and father, who wanted me to be a lawyer or a judge. After two months, I quit. I didn’t want to be a lawyer—I didn’t think that I liked or wanted to do it as a profession. I went home to Brooklyn, untrained for anything. My parents thought I was making a big mistake.

  My father, looking to steer me in the right direction, encouraged me to go into public relations, and I got one small account—an old-age home. It paid me one hundred dollars a month and I worked from my mother’s kitchen table, using a portable typewriter. I pecked away and wrote some stories. I then asked my mother to answer the phone “Howard J. Rubenstein Associates,” and she refused. She, in turn, basically kicked me out of the house. That was the beginning of my career.

  But after three or four years, I still didn’t feel I had a profession. Back then, public relations was looked down on. Many people thought that PR people were just snake oil salesmen with a complete lack of professionalism. I was concerned I’d made a tremendous mistake, and I went back to law school at night, finishing St. John’s University School of Law in four years and first in my class. Although I was offered a number of jobs in law, including assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, I ultimately determined that I enjoyed PR and committed to making a career of it.

  So in reality, what I thought was a tremendous mistake in leaving Harvard ended up being the best “mistake” I could have made. When I went back to finish my law degree, I found I was more focused and better able to appreciate the value of my education. I believe my law degree has served me extremely well in the public relations business.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  Do what you want to do in love and in your profession. Appreciate the value of a good education. You have to work very hard at everything. What appears to be a mistake is sometimes a blessing—that’s what I’ve found.

  ROBERT REDFORD

  Academy Award–Winning Actor,

  Director

  I grew up in a lower-working-class neighborhood in southwest Los Angeles, and there wasn’t much available entertainment. It was the middle of World War II, and aside from a Saturday-night walk to a neighborhood movie house and a midweek trip to the library to check out something from the children’s section (Rafael Sebastian was big), you were pretty much on your own. You were the entertainment that you created.

  I decided to face the monotony of everyday chores and humdrum tasks by making them a game. I’d climb and count stairs after guessing how many. I’d watch a car moving into an intersection and would take odds on the green turning yellow. I’d count steps to the corner. And so on.

  As I grew older and more adventure and movement came my way, I still maintained this notion of making a game out of any boring repetitive ritual. I’d turn jobs that were mostly common labor into creative, challenging contests to be won—routines to be cut short and tricked.

  At the Standard Oil Refinery (now Chevron) in El Segundo, California, I secured a job as a roustabout in the oil fields. By angling and cajoling, I advanced to the chemical waste department, where I was a bottle washer. My father was an accountant in the accounting department high above in the same building. He was lucky to have secured this job, which he would have for life, when the Great Depression spilled into the Second World War.

  I was lazy. I wanted something more challenging than sweating and grunting for eight hours, lifting lifeless, heavy objects in the jack-hammering noise of teeth-rattling drills plunging into hot wasted concrete. So shortly after landing a cushier but no less boring job putting bottles on spigots in a revolving cistern, I got antsy and inventive. When a complete cycle of bottles finished making their rounds in the washing machine, another worker would load the six to eight twelve-quart bottles into cases, stack the cases on a cart with a dolly handle, wheel them into an elevator, take them up to the loading dock, wheel them out to the edge, and stop, unhook the cart from the dolly, and leave it there for trucks, which would back into the loading zone and load them.

  To keep this task interesting, I began to improvise. I would add extra cases to the load, then get fancy wheeling the cart into the elevator and out onto the loading dock, going faster each time to try to beat the time spent, then run the cart up to the guard block at the edge of the dock and yank the dolly handle out of the slot all in one motion, then race back down and check my time.

  One day the extra weight on the car made the load too top-heavy, and the sudden stop overran the guard block and the entire load tipped out of my grasp and cascaded down into the street in a cacophony of crashing, breaking bottles. All of them. It sounded like an incredible traffic accident, the din reverberating through the entire building and loading area. All the windows from the administration offices flew open in a panicked synchronicity to see me standing there above the rubble, a limp dolly handle in my hand, and in one of the windows was the face of my father—seeing his stature diminished by his irresponsible son.

  It was not my first offense by trying to make my job more creative. I had been removed from other departments for similar escapades. I was fired—told to seek other employment elsewhere. My father kept his job but didn’t speak to me for days, and he may have sought therapy for what mistakes were made in my upbringing. I was indeed humbled and chagrined.

  WHAT I LEARNED

  Despite my failure and hubris, the creative process does have virtue.

  LILY TOMLIN

  All-Around Charming Entertainer

  So many mistakes rush to mind that I feel like a “star” about to implode. When I think of all the mistakes I’ve made, I realize that I’m the perfect person to contribute to this book.

  My biggest mistake was the lack of courage I showed back in 1987.

  Remember when Cher wore that dress to the Oscars in 1986? The dress was midriff-bare and there was a feather headdress? If you saw her in it, you’ve never forgotten it.

  Well
, I was going to wear that dress the next year. Cher was going to loan it to me, and we both thought it would be really funny. There was, however, one hitch: at the time, I was playing at the Kennedy Center and I would have to cancel two or three shows to go to the Oscars. So my publicist and the people at the Kennedy Center did everything they could to talk me out of it. They said people would think I was making fun of Cher, and I was being “indulgent and unfair” to people who would be disappointed when my shows were canceled at the Kennedy Center.

  So, I didn’t do it; I didn’t wear that iconic dress to the Oscars and I didn’t give my fans one of the most enjoyable and hilarious experiences of our lives together.

  Of course, not everyone would’ve seen the humor. But to my hard-core fans (and you all know who you are), the moment would’ve been enough to bind us forever.